Thursday afternoon I had the realization that I still had not purchased a shovel; my inner drive to get one after our last big snowstorm waned immediately after I dug myself out and went home on vacation. So it wasn’t until the latest storm was looming, along with the local ordinance requiring one to go to the store for a 24-pack of toilet paper, gallon of milk and loaf of bread, that I realized I needed to go shovel shopping. And that the odds of quickly locating one might be small.
But I realized the odds of a shove being found elsewhere were pretty good, and that the vendor might be able to ship the shovel to me quickly. Amazon to the rescue! Shovel in stock, overnight delivery available, shovel actually delivered less than 24 hours after ordering. Now all I have to do is wait for the snow to stop.
amazon, is there anything it can’t do?
You might not want to wait until the snow stops completely. Two feet of snow is more than twice as difficult to shovel as one foot of snow, so if you know you’re getting a real big snowfall, it’s a good idea to go out and shovel things halfway through, to reduce the overall amount of work.
When I was in DC during a three-foot storm, I went out and shoveled halfway through, and there were neighbors out on their porches yelling at me “It’s still snowing, you idiot!” They found out why the next day…
@Chad. I know you are right, but the monkey wrench here is the wind. It will tend to un-do any shoveling I might do. And I need to wait for the local help to clear the walkways and finish plowing the parking lot.
The actual volume of snow I will have to remove is small compared to what I’d have to do if I lived in a house. If I were clearing a driveway and walkway, I’d be out there. I’d also have gotten a bigger shovel.